Welcome

CAFAS is a group dedicated to maintaining standards of integrity and practice in academia, to exposing breaches of those standards and to supporting the victims of those breaches.

CAFAS welcomes widened access to further and higher education. But expansion in the absence of a corresponding increase in funding and the attempt to run education on commercial principles have led to standards being undermined and to staff who protest being victimised. Many are too demoralised, or too pressured by the provision of inadequate resources to challenge the decline; others are fearful of redundancy or are intimidated by the threat of victimisation and some respond to job insecurity by themselves becoming victimisers of the vulnerable.

CAFAS faces the fact that the British educational system is decaying. The Council will not collaborate with the pretence that this is not happening nor will it compromise on the right to say so. The principle of academic freedom enshrined in the Education Reform Act (1988) – that “academic staff have freedom within the law to question and test received wisdom and put forward new ideas and controversial or unpopular opinions without placing themselves in jeopardy of losing their jobs” – is increasingly under attack, particularly when staff expose instances of corruption and shoddy standards.

CAFAS is committed to campaigning against the formal or informal abuse of power and influence by persons at all levels in universities and colleges of further education. As such CAFAS provides a means of challenging arbitrary, unjust, unreasonable or biased decisions in H.E. and F.E.

CAFAS

Campaigns against the decline in academic standards

Defends individuals against victimisation

Gives moral support and informal legal advice

Investigates malpractice and publishes findings

Seeks to develop a support network with unions and other organisations.